I recently wrote a post about engagement rings, their cost and worth and whether you should or shouldn’t stick to traditions. Now I’m definitely not a traditional girl, and if you read my previous post you will know that my engagement ring isn’t traditional and that I got engaged in Disney World! I also previously mentioned a Disney themed wedding, once again I definitely want that when the time comes. Although getting married at Disney World, Florida would also be amazing, it can be very very expensive!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for having opinions, in fact the world would be so boring if everyone was the same, but I have had some very bad reactions to the idea of a themed wedding. Some from my friends, family and some from strangers! Now lets be realistic, at this time in my life I’m not even close to planning a wedding, so having a few crazy ideas is absolutely fine, right? But it got me thinking about how even though more and more people are choosing to have non traditional weddings, somehow they are still not deemed acceptable. But why? If you love weddings with a difference (and if you don’t, this might change you mind!) you should check out Rock n Roll Bride and Rock My Wedding for some gorgeous inspiration.

Yippee ! It’s Clara & Paul’s wedding day today and as you are reading this I am already photographing the bridal prep! I have got to know Clara and Paul really well in the lead up to their wedding and I am just so excited for this day. Keep you eyes peeled for a few sneak peeks of their wedding day later tonight!

This is the third instalment in small business appreciation, I really like doing this because it shows talent of people who may not be seen by a large audience, and it’s a pat on the back for those who work so hard running their own business.

I had seen a few book folds and thought they looked nice and wasn’t too bothered. Then Clara invited me to like her Facebook Page and I saw some of her designs – they are amazing! I wouldn’t be surprised if she could book fold almost anything that you ask her to. Here are some examples:

I recently read an article in The Mirror, (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/want-stay-married-fellas-splash-5365678) and was shocked to hear that a study ‘shows’ that the more you spend on an engagement ring, the longer you will stay together. All I can say that this is absolute rubbish and I really can’t believe they are promoting this idea. Traditionally, I believe you are meant to spend around 3 months wages on an engagement ring, and it’s ‘supposed’ to be a single diamond. Now I don’t want to offend anyone, but personally that is the complete opposite to what I would want. I’m not a tradition girl, and I don’t wear expensive jewellery most of the time, any that I have is carefully stashed away for special occasions.

That’s not to say that you can’t go for the traditional look, and I’m sure many people do, I’m just saying that you don’t have to! I’ve been with my Fiancé for nearly six years now, and I’d like to think we know each other pretty well. Still, did I trust him to pick out a ring for me? Yes, and no. Throughout the years he has gifted me thing that I loved, liked and some thing’s I wasn’t sure of. Truth be told, anything I wasn’t sure of grew on me pretty quickly, and that goes to show that really he does know me well, and I should start being more adventurous with things I pick out for myself.

When it came to looking for a ring, I would dreamily search the internet for pretty rings with my friends, them choosing huge diamonds, and me never quite finding something that grabbed my attention. I never looked at Tiffany’s or anywhere so extravagant, I knew those ‘big rocks’ didn’t suit my personality, and I hoped my Fiancé would too. This may all sound a bit presumptuous but we had indeed spoken about marriage and being engaged, an impatient me was soothed by the words ‘when the time is right,’ (and when exactly would that be?!).

So last Thursday was my 22nd birthday and it’s safe to say that I celebrated it in style. What better way to land comfortably into your twenties than to have breakfast with Mickey Mouse! Yes, you read correctly, I spent another year in Disneyland (Paris this time) and I absolutely loved it!

I asked my boyfriend to plan a couple of days away for my birthday this year and surprise me with where we are going. I told him it had to be fun, not too expensive and I wanted to stay away from home for at least one night, and I then left him to it. Little did I know he would let his imagination run away with him and plan a trip to Disney Land Paris! Part of the inspiration for this trip was his 8 year old cousins birthday, for which his parents and aunt and uncle would be going to Disneyland, once he heard that he knew I would be so jealous! We had a drink with them on the Friday evening and spent a few hours in the park with them on the Saturday too.

Our trip was from Wednesday 19th until Sunday 23rd November and although short and sweet I felt it was just long enough and we had a great time. We travelled by Eurotunnel and it took less than half an hour to get through the crossing! The drive to Paris was about 3 hours but it really didn’t seem too long. On my birthday we had breakfast at Cafe Mickeys which is a character breakfast buffet, where Mickey and friends come to your table for photo opportunities. I love character breakfasts and I love the meet and greats, it’s fun seeing your favourite characters from films come to life!

This time last year I was preparing to go to Disney World! Which you can read all about here. Sadly, this year I am not doing anything as exciting, but I am preparing for another trip. I asked my boyfriend to book a little getaway for us for my birthday and surprise me with it, so far I *think* we are going to France, and that it will be Christmas themed (I LOVE Christmas). One of the many things that I am going to pack is my Canon Powershot S110, the best compact camera that I have ever owned. I bought this camera in September last year, in time for my Disney trip – and it was perfect!

Since it has been a year since I bought the camera I thought it would be a great time to do a review as I have frequently used it over the past year. One of the many reasons that this camera is perfect for me is because it is easily portable and can fit in my bag or pocket. This is so important because I love my DSLRs but they are big and heavy and I feel like I can’t always enjoy the moment if I am lugging them around. However I have found that most compact cameras do not have the quality I want – until the Powershot S110. This camera is my baby and I take it practically everywhere.

One of the best features is the manual functions, you can change ISO, shutter speed, aperture and create your own settings for the lighting that you want, rather than relying on the auto setting which doesn’t always have desired results. I like the way the pop up flash meters with the ambient lighting and doesn’t create a bright over exposed image. I also like that you can turn the flash completely off and just use the camera settings to adjust lighting for your photos. There is a video function which is useful, and the microphone on the camera is better than you would expect for a small device. The quality of this camera is similar to my DSLRs, or at least I think so, it has 12 megapixels and thanks to the manual functions I am taking better photos than I ever have on a compact camera.

Last but not least, there is a wi-fi function which allows you to upload photos to Facebook, Canon Gateway, and a couple of other sites. I found this useful for backing up images, or saving them to email on my phone using the Canon Gateway app (this was particularly useful when I didn’t have a laptop with me on holiday). This function however, should not be one of the main reasons that you choose this camera, as it is quite slow and can be temperamental.

Overall I think this is the best compact camera I have ever used. At £300 it is an investment but well worth it I feel. This model is one of the older ones as they have now brought out the S120 which I have heard has a few updates. I will leave you with a range of images I have taken with this lovely little camera.

Ok, so the last couple of weeks were absolutely amazing! And now it’s all back to normal, sad times! On a personal note it was my birthday on Wednesday (20th November) and I had an absolutely amazing time celebrating it in Disney World, Florida.

And then… this totally happened!

Such an exciting time!

On a photographic note, I am currently battling with my Dissertation proposal which is due in on Monday. I then will start my other two proposals due the following week. I am making a cinemagraph like I have mentioned in my previous posts so I will post that up as soon as it is finished. In the mean time ‘here’s one I made earlier!’

So my cousin invited us round for dinner a couple of weeks ago and as I am getting really into my Disney baking magazines I said I would bring dessert. I really wanted to try the Pooh cupcakes so I made them, and Adam, my boyfriend made some Mickey Cookies.

It was quite easy to make the cakes with the dry ingredients being mixed in with melted butter and honey. I used silicon cases as they were bright colours and I thought they would go great with the Winnie The Pooh Theme! Once I had made the mixture I scooped it into the cases using about three tablespoons for each case. I made twelve cupcakes in total and they rose nice and high too!

While waiting for the cakes to cool I started on the decoration. I bought white fondant icing and a yellow colour too which I rolled out for the tops. I didn’t have a round cutter so I used a flower one which I think looked really cute.

Now, doing the decorations on top of the cakes was a complete nightmare. We coloured stiff icing and spread it on just like the magazine says. Well our first Winnie The Pooh was so funny his face was all squished!

However we got in the swing of things after a while and it seemed to work out. The cakes were nice but not as delicious as I thought they might be, esepecially as the yellow icing I bought tasted horrible! Nevermind – they looked great!

In the second installment of my baking adventures with Disney baking magazine I decided to do something a little bit more simple than the Mickey cookies last time. I was really tired from working and London Fashion Week so I wanted something quick and easy. By the time I was finished I felt like this;

I had received the second and third issues with the gifts in the post. I also got the binder, it’s lovely but so fiddly to put together!

I love love love the Winnie the Pooh moulds so I decided to make chocolates with them. I bought some chopped hazelnuts which I put in the mixture as I love chocolate and nuts!

They could be a little more refined, to be honest we were a little bit sloppy with them but I LOVE them! They look so cute and they would be perfect party favours or something like that. The only thing that I was not sure of was that we made too much chocolate and ran out of moulds! They don’t take long to set so you could make a few.

We also made Piglet’s Snuffle Truffles which has the cutest name! They were so yummy and only took about 10 minutes to put together, but about 2 hours to set! They were a bit of a nightmare because we made them at about 8pm and had to wait to set. I think we could have let them set a little more before rolling them into balls because they were a little sticky! You are supposed to dust them in pink icing sugar but we couldn’t find any colouring ( sad face). we instead used cocoa powder and chopped hazelnuts. They were delicious and they even got the seal of approval from my mum who has been looking for the perfect truffle for years!

Basically for my 21st I somehow convinced my parents, my boyfriend and myself to gather together enough money to go to Walt Disney World in November. I am literally beyond excited and I’m sure there will be many more posts about it including one on how to go about preparing for a holiday.

In the meantime I have started creating a Pinterest Board of everything that I want to buy while I am out there (it’s going to be a big list). I am adding these things so I can remember all the cute things that I want to get and also the presents that we are planning on buying for other people. Incase anyone wonders I booked through Virgin Holidays in a Debenhams Department store. We bought the Park Tickets Directly through Disney saving us £50 (which we then put towards the hotel to upgrade to a nicer one).

The other day I picked up a copy of Disney baking magazine for just 99p in Asda! (http://eaglemoss.com/default.aspx you can subscribe or order here!). It looked sooooo cute I just couldn’t resist.

I decided to make the Mickey cookies as they looked so good and seemed pretty simple for someone like me who doesn’t bake very often.The ingredients are pretty simple and it makes a shortbread like cookie which was lovely! I added in some white and milk chocolate chips to add a bit of flavour and I seem to add chocolate chips to most recipes I make!The first part including baking took us about 2 hours to do. We were being extra careful and lost two Mickey’s because his ears fell off! (note, support ears when transferring to a baking tray!).

After we baked them came the fiddly bit! We had a little bit of a tantrum because we ran out of black food colouring, so now we have grey Mickeys! Icing them was really difficult and I was really tired (it was 11pm) so I didn’t do to well. However if you see the good looking one, my sister did that, she took catering classes at school so she’s more of a pro!

It was really fun and I will definitely be making them again. I will be trying out more recipes in the mean time while waiting for the next 2 issues to come. You should definitely subscribe and you even get some free gifts. I was ummming and ahhhhing about £16 a month on my student budget but I have decided that it is feasible as there are things that I won’t be doing this academic year such as buying food and having as many takeaways.